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8800 GT Sli

AgedIdiot

AgedIdiot

AgedIdiot

Soldato
Joined
31 Oct 2007
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Gods County(Allegedly)
Decided to use the Asus A8N32 sli motherboard for its intended purpose and invested in a second Zotac 8800Gt (not AMP)

Am up and running and will see how it goes.

Only test I had run and kept record of was 3d Mark 2006 - was 10065 - now 11058.

Seem about right?

Any tips?

Many years/motherboards/cpu's since I last had a go.(wasn't that impressed then ; hopefully now improved)

What settings should be about right with Crysis

n.b. running Opty 185 @2.79. Screen 1680x1050

It appears that Zotac now provide a 5 yr warranty. The standard 2 years being extended PROVIDED you register within 14days of purchase. registartion is via Zotac web site.
 
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I agree... you're probably CPU limited.

However as your gaming res increases that bottleneck will lessen.

From 1680x1050 and up it will be hardly noticeable. Do you see a distinct improvement in the games you play? You should have seen a fairly decent increase in framerates at your monitors native res.

It's just 3DMark06's 1280x1024 res that's causing the lower than expected score.

gt
 
Yes, definately your CPU affecting things for the worse.

I had 2 8800GT's SLI'd recently, and got similar 'jump' in scores using an E2140 at 3Ghz. When I swapped it out for an E6600 also at 3ghz, I got 1.5k more.

But, it's only 3dmark06, so try a few games where you should notice a worthwhile jump. Crysis and FEAR were two that I noticed worked best, with worthwhile increases in frame rates. My results were at a low resolution of 1440 x 900 though, which isn't really high enough a resolution to make it worthwhile.
 
Try running the crysis benchmark and see what you get.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17821009

3D Mark 06 scrore is VERY cpu sensitive so to speak. I only get 11K with an overclocked 8800gts 512MB and an opty at just under 3GHz which is a lot lower than others with same card.

But in the crysis benchmark i get nearly 46FPS which seems a lot more respectable compared to what the other rigs are getting.

Main thing is how well does it game :)
 
Like the OP I tried 8800GT with SLI and an opt180 @ 2.9ghz, I benched crysis and 3dmark06 and wasnt impressed. When going from the opt180 to a e8500@4ghz I got the increase I was looking for with SLI, shame the stability wasnt there on a 780i motherboard.
 
AgedIdiot said:
How do I test that Sli is working?

Would mention that 3d Mark did improve after installing - 10% increase
Click to expand...
What operating system are you using?

When i had a 7950GX2 i remembered using a program with an SLi load meter. Think it was either NHancer or Ntune?

That might show you SLi's working.

Also, in NVidia's toolbar i believe there's a multi gpu option of some form.

I remember on NView in the display section there was an SLi enabling tickbox:

SLI.jpg


Anything like that around?

gt
 
This is getting very confusing !!!

Decided to disable Sli and run Crysis bench - 39.61 avg.

Enabled and 'watched' it working via n'tune (it therefore seems to be working ) and got 35.185 avg.

Just to be sure disabled again to get 39.43 avg

What is going on ?
 
That's truly odd! :confused:

Do you have the newest forceware driver and is Crysis all patched up?

I know that i had to install a few vista patches to fully enable crossfire support for my X2 so it could possibly be something similar to that.

Only thing to suggest beyond those above is a clean install of the PC.

I'd agree - that is a very weird result?! :(

gt
 
Just in case ;-
1.Turned of Sli & uninstalled 2nd card
2.Just checked Bios in case there was something I needed to switch on/off
3.In process manged to corrupt Bios and had to clear Cmos and re-config.:(

there is nothing to switch on or of in the Bios as far as I can find. Although I think the reason I mucked up the bios was that I changed Primary Adapter from
PciE1->PCI->PciE2
to
PciE2->PCI->Pcie1
and after it would not boot visibly into the bios.( given the fact that my monitor is plugged into Pcie1 it didn't come as a big surprise - unless I've misinterpreted ; which if anyone thinks I have please advise}

having re- config tried again with firstly one gpu (39 fps) and then in sli(35fps)

Had a spare Sli connector and tried that same result.

Did notice that when benching in Crysis the 'green' bar was only widening about 15/20% of the time - the rest it seemed stable.

Any ideas?
n.b. Crysis is fully patched to 1.2.1 and nvidia drivers are the 169.44. Am running XP Home fully updated
 
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Absolutely no idea... are there any other games that you could use to check the SLi definately isn't working properly?

I also remember using Ntune or Nhancer's SLi profiles to run games. I could force which type of SLi to use incase a game didn't support it.

I generally used AFR (Alternate Frame Rendering) as that was the most reliable form of SLi.

SFR (Split Frame Rendering) caused me major headaches including reduction in performance like you're seeing in Crysis.

Any options to change to AFR if it isn't already being used?

When i had my 7950GX2 the rest of the rig was an AMD Opteron 165 @ 3ghz on a DFI SLi-DR which uses the same chipset as your board (incidentally i also had an A8N32... great board :)) which is why this is so confusing.

Try downloading NHancer if you don't already have it - it should give you the option to force the SLi mode you want and allow you to use AFR. Looks like this:

SLIMode_en.png


gt
 
Am now totally ......... of , mainly because ,as mentioned above, Crysis runs faster without Sli and I cannot understand why.

Did note that in 3d settings nvidia recomends single gpu ; whereas for example Half life 2 Episode 2 they rec. Sli. .... Is this the problem?

Am begining to think I'd be better of selling the second card:mad:

Did try forcing Split , Afr etc .All were worse than nvid rec.
 
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